I have decided!!! I will do the Turkish Airlines challenge to get 1mln Miles&Smiles

In recent days I wrote about the challenge launched by Turkish Airlines, a challenge that rewards winners with 1,000,000 Miles&Smiles.

After a couple of reflections and also "gassed" by the amount of community users who decided to make it, I decided to try it myself.

The challenge in a nutshell

The challenge issued by the Turkish company is to Award 1mln miles to all travelers who by Oct. 27. (on my birthday) will have been able to fly aboard TK aircraft on all six continents. North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. A way to celebrate the fact that Turkish Airlines is the airline with the most destinations in the world.

Last year, as is well known, I completed the SAS challenge and I got 1mln of Eurobonus miles and now that I'm in the middle of the Miles&More challenge. I started to design my Turkish Airlines itinerary.

Easier than SAS's

I decided to make it because. Is definitely less stressful than the one done last year with SAS which required flying with at least 15 Skyteam companies worldwide.

Here, however, are many more routes since I am forced to transit through Istanbul every time, but the ones that count will only ever be with Turkish Airlines so I won't have a problem getting my flights credited and I won't even have to hope that my card is spelled correctly on every reservation or that the fare is qualifying, since only award tickets, staff, students, and health staff are excluded.

As in the case of SAS I currently have no status with Turkish Airlines, but when in doubt I just applied for access to their hidden status match And we will see if I will be accepted. If the request is accepted I will have the opportunity to choose the best places without paying when I fly economy, priority boarding, lounge access and I will also earn more Miles&Smiles with the various flights.

Itinerary broken into 4

In mid-July I needed to fly from Riga to New York. And the reason is that I had been booking for months a flight aboard Lufthansa's 747/4 from New York. and so this route is perfect for routing North America as a first stop.

The business class ticket cost me just under 950€.

A few days after returning to Italy I will take a goose ride. From Milan to Dubai, that way Asia will be done, no ride out of the airport (it's 40 degrees in August) and I will fly immediately to Marrakesh And so I will be halfway through having touched Africa as well, and then return to Italy and also putting on record a destination in Europe.

This itinerary is subject to change, but the point is. I want to avoid destinations where a visa is required or where tickets cost too much, so targeting a hub like Dubai and a destination like Marrakesh will help save on tickets. These three tickets should cost me between 6 and 700 euros, obviously in economy.

For South America, I am monitoring prices, but. let's say you can fly even for less than €400 to one of the various destinations that TK covers always having a stopover in Istanbul. For the return flight I have several options and it could be an excuse to review on the YT channel a carrier like Latam, Aerolineas Argentina or Aeromexico. In that case I have no shortage of miles to get home without bleeding myself dry.

The last leg, before crossing the finish line, will be the hardest and most exhausting. That is to fly to Oceania, going back to Australia was not in my plans, also because in October I will be in Singapore, in November in Japan and in December in Vietnam, but if I have to take home 1M miles I will make the effort, but I will do it in business class. Although I am attracted to the possibility of spend about 800 euros for an economy ticket and then play my chances with an upgrade.

Shall we take a piece of the road together?

Many people have written to me, the discussion is also very heated in our facebook group, for this I have decided that I will share the dates of my flights as soon as they are booked. At the moment I have only one flight already booked, but in the coming days I will make the remaining reservations also to give more time to organize for those who want to join.

My first ticket will be to New York next July 15. I will arrive in Istanbul from Riga on flight TK1578 and depart for New York, EWR side, on the 6:55 p.m. TK29. The next day I will return home with Lufthansa, so not connected to this challenge with flight LH401 to Frankfurt.

Obviously Bum hunting is put on hold for these flights, but for all those who will join I promise a surprise

How much are 1mln Skymiles miles worth

I'll be honest, the Miles&Smiles program has never been on my radar., but since RevPoints was born and it is possible to transfer from Revolut to this program I started to consider it quite a bit. Of course during 2024 there was a devaluation of the award table, but I must say that there are still very interesting possibilities.

The fixed award chart, with promos, allows you to fly to the U.S. or to the East in business class a/r with 130k miles. But the beauty of a company participating in an alliance is that you can take tickets with partners as well, such as the ability to fly business from one coast of the U.S. to another for only 20k M&S miles.

Besides that of course I will have several reviews to post on my YT channel of the different Turkish Airlines cabins, since Until today I had only posted one economy on an A321 from Istanbul to Egypt.

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